In the Rozhdestvensky film, I like his solution (from 22.29) to the perennial problem posed by the opening of the Symphonie fantastique:

“I simply invited them to begin”

and then let them get on with it.

Which reminds me, a noted baroque conductor (or “semi-conductor“, to use Norman Lebrecht’s term) was rehearsing the opening of a slow aria in the Matthew Passion. One of the wind players suggested he might try subdividing:

“Could you give us 7–8 into it?”

Conductor, indignantly: “I didn’t get where I am today by giving 7–8!”

“I didn’t get where I am today by…” soon became another musos’ snowclone.

And here’s Larson’s take on conducting.